Environmental Research Ship May Get Silly Name Thanks to Internet

This is why we can’t have nice things.

Democracy can take many shapes, but at its core is the ability for the participation of all its members, and where better to get a virtually unlimited, unbiased sampling of the general populace than online?

That’s what the Natural Environment Research Council of England thought when they decided it would be a great idea to turn to the lovely people of the internet to name their newest ship, a £200 million, 15,000 ton polar research vessel set to be the United Kingdom’s most advanced yet.

Scheduled to head to Antarctica in 2019, the NERC devised the #NameOurShip campaign to celebrate the ship’s launch, deciding to turn to the people to name it.